Blind Faith
by Lucea
Summary: Spending day after day trapped in the Forsaken Fortress, Mila can't help but wonder about the tenacious hope of the little girl with the seagulls. Wind Waker oneshot.


**Disclaimer:** _The Legend of Zelda_ and its characters are copyright Nintendo. This work is not for profit.

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In short, Mila was royally screwed.

Spending so much time around these commoners and... _creatures_ was not doing much for her vocabulary, either.

Thankfully, the creatures didn't bother them much (except to bring them "food" – if she could even call it that), and so Mila was left with the commoners. And oh, what commoners they were. That horrid bird that carried her off could have picked anyone. _Anyone._ And yet, out of all the commoners on the entire Great Sea, it had to choose that filthy peasant girl.

Her name was Maggie. It was a detail Mila had never cared to know back home, and to be frank, she wished she didn't know it now. If she didn't, that meant this never would have happened – she would still be home safely with her father and her things, not sitting in this filth and eating this questionable slop to survive. "At least you get it every day," Maggie had muttered beneath her breath the first time Mila had pushed the gruel away.

It was all well and good for Maggie. Maggie wasn't civilized enough to realize what a mess they were living in. Maggie was used to living like this. Maggie even had one of those creatures that she seemed to be _friendly_ with.

"What?" Maggie had caught Mila's eye on her one day after that creature brought them their daily ration of slime.

Mila turned away, smoothed her dress, folded her arms. "Nothing."

"I want to go home as much as you do, y'know."

Mila humphed, sat down on the floor as carefully as possible, and daintily forced herself to take a bite of the mess she was supposed to call dinner. Put simply, Maggie belonged here. Mila didn't.

Mila had thought it couldn't get any worse. She should've known not to think that, because as soon as she did things were bound to get worse. That was the way it always went in stories.

It was around noon one day a few weeks into their captivity when those creatures' spears prodded another girl – another commoner – into their cell. She couldn't be older than six or seven. After the guards left, the girl had smiled – actually _smiled_ – and introduced herself like they were meeting for a picnic outside on a summer afternoon. "Hi! I'm Aryll. What's your name?"

And as if Aryll's disgustingly cheerful demeanor wasn't enough to make their situation worse, with her came the seagulls.

Mila didn't know what it was about her that brought them, but it had to be her. They'd arrived when she had. There was no other explanation. And she didn't seem to get it, either. She played with them. Those messy, smelly, unsanitary creatures that had been who knew where. At least those Moblin things left them alone most of the time. Unlike those birds.

And yet Aryll played with them. She didn't seem to understand their situation. That was the only way Mila could make sense of it. How could she possibly be so cheerful otherwise?

"How can you be so happy here?" Mila finally demanded, scaring a few seagulls into flight. Aryll reached between the bars after them, then looked over her shoulder at Mila.

"I'm not happy here. I want to go home." Simple, plaintive. Mila humphed.

"Tough luck. We're not going anywhere."

Aryll shook her head. "Big Brother will save us."

Mila paused. "...What?"

"Big Brother is coming to save us. I know he is."

Mila laughed at that, actually laughed. "Big Brother" couldn't be much older than she was, and there was no way a kid like that was going to save them.

It was some time in the middle of the night when one of the big doors scraped open. The girls looked up. Something had to be happening. The creatures never bothered them in the middle of the night. But it wasn't a creature on the other side of the door.

It was a boy. A boy with blond hair and eyes like Aryll's, dressed in the oddest, greenest outfit Mila had ever seen. Aryll gasped, eyes lighting up. Could this really be the "Big Brother" she so firmly believed would rescue her? Could they really be... free?

The hope didn't last. It never did. He was only a few steps into the room when she heard them coming. He stopped, listening; he'd heard them too. They got louder. He looked up and let out a yell. The beating wings dropped into the room, and the bird shrieked.

It was over in a heartbeat. The bird snatched him up in its beak, and Aryll screamed as it carried her brother away.

As much as she wanted to, Mila couldn't bring herself to tell the girl who sobbed as she clutched the wooden bars _"I told you so."_

After that, she'd expected things to go back to the way they'd been. The days would pass slowly, forlornly, and the only difference would be the presence of this girl and her seagulls.

But she was wrong.

The girl was quiet for the next few days. She sat looking at the floor or gazing out their lone window, always with at least a seagull or two crowding up next to her. And then, one day – Mila wasn't quite sure when it happened – she was playing with them again. Incredulous, Mila watched until Aryll noticed her staring.

"Do you want to play with us?"

"No thanks," Mila answered coolly. What made that girl think she'd want to play with her and her germ-ridden birds?

"Oh. Okay." Aryll went back to playing until she saw that Mila was still watching her. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." A few more minutes passed. Finally, Mila just decided to ask. "Aren't you sad that your brother didn't save us?"

Aryll paused in her game. Her face fell. She nodded.

"Then how can you still smile like that?"

Aryll sat down, reaching out to pet one of her seagulls. "Because he's coming back."

Mila's mouth just about fell open. "What?"

"I'm scared, but I know he's coming back, so it's okay." She left off petting the bird to look out the window. "I hope he's okay too."

Mila didn't have a response for that. If there was one thing _she_ knew, it was that this girl's brother was _not_ coming back. That giant bird had carried him off. Even if that hadn't killed him, how could he possibly find his way back here? And even allowing for the very, very remote chance that he did, how on the entire Great Sea was he going to rescue them? He was just a kid. The bird would fly in again and that would be the end of that.

Days turned into weeks, and as far as Mila could tell, that girl actually believed that her big brother was going to come and rescue them. And what amazed Mila even more was that every day he didn't come, she kept on believing that he would. She'd tried to argue to no avail. Aryll was convinced. She was worried, but convinced. "Big Brother" was going to save them.

Mila would never admit it, but there was a little, tiny, miniscule part of her that dared to hope and even wondered if maybe, somehow, impossibly, he would.


End file.
